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News Release: The New Spadina Subexpressway

Today, Mayor Rob Ford, with his new Chief Roads and Cars Advisor, Laurence Lui, announced the first project in an ambitious plan to expand the road network in the City of Toronto. The Spadina Subexpressway will replace the Spadina Subway between Eglinton Avenue and Queen Street with a free-flowing roadway to help ease congestion for suburban commuters heading downtown.

“People have always pointed out that the Spadina Subway is underutilized,” Lui explained. “It’s about time we righted a wrong, and finish the plan that should have been completed, instead of a white elephant of a subway line that provides the most direct access for cars from the northwest part of the city.”

During the mayoral campaign, Rocco Rossi announced his plans to extend Allen Road from its current terminus to the Gardiner Expressway to the ire of local residents, who feared that the roadway would create negative impacts on surrounding communities. 

“Rossi’s plan was flawed in that it was to build a new tunnel. Working with Laurence, we realized that there was a perfectly good tunnel that was already there that was seldom used. Can you imagine how I responded when I found out we had a tunnel that was not moving a single person between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m.? It’s ridiculous. Pure gravy,” said Ford. To compensate Rossi for his visionary genius, Ford is considering naming the roadway the “Rocco Rossi Expressway”.

The key to the new Spadina Subexpressway plan is that there will be no interchanges between Eglinton Avenue and downtown.

“That was the big fear, that the highway would mean off-ramps and interchanges onto local roads,” Lui said. “This new plan would terminate the subexpressway in the basement of the Four Seasons Centre for Performing Arts, which will be converted into a 20-storey parking garage, which all cars using the roadway will be expected to use. A parking fee will be charged to recoup the cost, which will be $2.50, or a TTC token.”

Map of the new Spadina Subexpressway (in orange). The Four Seasons Parking Garage is shown at its southern terminus.

Each subway tunnel will be converted into one lane of roadway, with both tunnels carrying southbound traffic in the morning rush hour, and northbound in the evening. Overnight, there will be one lane in each direction. This was the only way to accommodate anticipated demand, Lui explained.

The cost of the project will be minimal, as the bulk of the cost, tunneling, is already complete. The bulk of the work will involve ripping out existing subway tracks and laying down asphalt and building the Four Seasons Parking Garage. The subexpressway will be sold to the 407 Consortium, the proceeds from which will fund the Sheppard Subway Extension. A 5% take from the tolls with further feed city coffers.

“I said I would find a way to fund the Sheppard Subway, and I’ve delivered. We’re eliminating the gravy that is the Spadina Expressway to build a much more needed subway on Sheppard. That’s what Torontonians voted me in for,” said Ford.

“The few subway riders on the Spadina Subway can still take the subway to Eglinton,” explained Lui. “They can transfer to the Eglinton Underground Streetcar at Eglinton West and transfer to the Yonge Subway to get downtown.”

“People hoping to catch a ride can wait on the existing subway station platforms, and drivers can charge potential ride-sharing passengers for a ride downtown.”

As for cyclists?

“Each lane in the tunnel is wide enough for a sharrow. We’re doing our best to accommodate cyclists wherever possible,” Lui said.